Eve had been back at the villa for less than half an hour when she heard Ethan come in through the door. Not expecting him for hours yet—even with the invitation she had left behind her earlier—she had just curled up in a shady spot on the terrace with the book her grandfather had given her for her birthday. It was a rare first edition of classical Greek love poems to add to the collection he had been building for her since her first birthday.
But the moment she heard Ethan’s step, the book was forgotten, a look of surprised delight already lighting her face at this major triumph in managing to get him to come back early because he couldn’t resist the invitation she’d so blatantly left him with.
‘I’m on the terrace!’ she called out and uncurled her feet from beneath her then stood up to go and meet him halfway. She reached the door through to the sitting room as he appeared in the arch leading into it from the hall. He stopped, she stopped. It took less than a second to make her welcoming smile fade from her face when she saw the expression on his. It was like being tossed back eleven days to that bar on the Caribbean beach, he looked so different.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WHAT’S wrong?’ she asked sharply, absolutely sure that something had to be, because no man changed so very much in such a short space of time without having a reason for doing so.
He didn’t reply, not immediately anyway. Instead he built the tension by grimly yanking the tie loose from his collar and tossing it aside then releasing his top shirt-button before issuing a heavy sigh.
‘We need to talk,’ he said on the back of that sigh. That was all, no warm greeting, no teasing comment about the little red heart she was wearing for him.
Fear began to walk all over her self-confidence, ‘W-what about?’
‘You and me,’ he replied, ran a hand round the back of his neck as if to attempt to ease the tension she could see he was suffering from. ‘We’ve been living a lie for the last ten days, Eve. Have you ever stopped to think about that?’
Think about it? She lived with it! Ate, slept and made love to it!
‘For me it stopped being a lie from the first time we made love, Ethan,’ she answered. ‘So maybe you had better tell me whether you’ve thought about it much recently.’
Her sarcasm hit a nerve, but instead of an answer he made a grimace that she just did not like. Something had happened; it had to have done to change the man she had left only an hour ago into this person who was so uptight she could actually feel his tension cutting through the air like a sharp knife. And worse: he had stopped looking at her.
‘I have to go away for a few days,’ he suddenly announced.
That was the root of all of this tension? ‘Well, that’s all right,’ she murmured, unable to believe that was the answer to what was bothering him. Forcing herself to walk forwards on legs that weren’t all that steady, she tried to look calm as she placed her book down on a nearby table then turned to look expectantly at him. ‘Business?’ she asked.
‘Yes—no.’ He changed his mind and began to frown. ‘It’s more an errand of mercy…’ Then he muttered, ‘Damn this, Eve—I’m trying to find out if you intend to still be here when I get back.’
Was that all? Staring at him, Eve couldn’t believe the sense of relief that went flooding through her. ‘Of course!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why ever not?’
For some bewildering reason, her reply only filled him with exasperation and he strode forward to grasp her left hand then lifted it up to her face. ‘Because this ring,’ he uttered tightly, ‘will become a formal engagement ring on Saturday in Athens. So if you want out, you have to say so now.’
‘Do you want out?’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I do not want out. I just needed to know where I stand with you before I—’
‘Well, I don’t want out,’ she cut in softly, and her smile came back to her eyes, to her slightly quivering mouth. ‘I want you.’
He loved that mouth, Ethan reaffirmed something he already knew. He loved this woman. But was her ‘I want you’ enough to make him declare himself?
Was it enough to get him through the rest of what he had to tell her. ‘Enough to trust me?’ he therefore had to ask.
‘Trust you about what?’
Well, here it comes, he thought, the bottom line to all of this. He took a deep breath, let it out again, desperately wanted to kiss her first, but held back on the need and looked deep into her beautiful green eyes. ‘Victor Frayne called me as you were leaving the office. He needs a very big favour from me. Due to unfounded rumours involving me and his daughter Leona, her marriage is under threat. So I am flying
out to Rahman to help scotch those rumours—at her husband Sheikh Hassan’s request.’
He added Hassan’s name to give it all sanction. He hoped it would hold a lot of sway. But silence came back at him, though it wasn’t really silence because Eve’s eyes told him a lot; their warm green slowly froze over until they’d turned to arctic frost. Her kissable mouth became a hard cold untouchable line, and loudest of all, she snatched her hand out of his and curled it into a tight fist at her side.
‘You’re still in love with her, you bastard,’ she whispered.
‘No.’ He denied it. ‘Leona needs—’
‘To know she still has you dangling on a string.’
Coming from the very woman who had him dangling, Ethan couldn’t help but laugh at that.